Ceapro (a Canadian biotech company) and its pressurized gas expanded technology with a mention of cellulose nanocrystals

At the mention of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), my interest was piqued. From a Nov. 10, 2015 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

Ceapro Inc. (TSX VENTURE:CZO) (“Ceapro” or the “Company”), a growth-stage biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of active ingredients for healthcare and cosmetic industries, announced that Bernhard Seifried, Ph.D., Ceapro’s Senior Research Scientist and a co-inventor of its proprietary Pressurized Gas Expanded Technology (PGX) will present this morning [Nov. 10, 2015] at the prestigious 2015 Composites at Lake Louise engineering conference.

A Nov. 10, 2015 Ceapro press release, which originated the news item, describes the technology in a little more detail and briefly mentions cellulose nanocrystals (Note: A link has been removed),

Dr. Seifried will make a podium presentation entitled, “PGX – Technology: A versatile technology for generating advanced biopolymer materials,” which will feature the unique advantages of Ceapro’s enabling technology for processing aqueous solutions or dispersions of high molecular weight biopolymers, such as starch, polysaccharides, gums, pectins or cellulose nanocrystals, into open-porous morphologies, consisting of nano-scale particles and pores.

Gilles Gagnon, M.Sc., MBA, President and CEO of Ceapro, stated, “Our disruptive PGX enabling technology facilitates biopolymer processing at a new level for generating unique highly porous biopolymer morphologies that can be impregnated with bioactives/APIs or functionalized with other biopolymers to generate exfoliated nano-composites and novel advanced material. We believe this technology will provide transformational solutions not only for our internal programs, but importantly, can be applied much more broadly for Companies with whom we intend to partner globally.”

Utilizing its PGX technology, Ceapro successfully produces its bioactive pharmaceutical grade powder formulation of beta glucan, which is an ingredient in a number of personal care cosmeceutical products as well as a therapeutic agent used for wound healing and a lubricative agent integrated into injectable systems used to treat conditions like urinary incontinence. The Company is developing its enabling PGX platform at the commercial scale level. In order to fully exploit the use of this innovative technology, Ceapro has recently decided to further expand its new world-class manufacturing facility by 10,000 square feet.

“The PGX platform generates unique morphologies that are not possible to produce with other conventional drying systems,” Mr. Gagnon continued. “The ultra-light, highly porous polymer structures produced with PGX have a huge potential for use in an abundant number of applications ranging from functional foods, nutraceuticals, drug delivery and cosmeceuticals, to advanced technical applications.”

Ceapro’s novel PGX Technology can be utilized for a wide variety of bio-industrial processing applications including:

Impregnate the polymer matrix homogeneously with thermo-sensitive bioactives and/or hydrophobic modifiers to tune solubility of the final polymer bioactive matrix all in the same processing equipment at mild conditions (40⁰C).

The highly tune-able PGX process can generate exfoliated nano-composites and highly porous morphologies ranging from sub-micron particles (50nm) to micron-sized granules (2mm), as well as micro- and nanofibrils, granules, fine powders and aerogels with porosities of >99% and specific surface areas exceeding 300 m2/gram. The technology is based on a spray drying method, operating at mild temperatures (40°C) and moderate pressures (100-200 bar) utilizing PGX liquids, which is comprised of a mixture of food grade, recyclable solvents, generally regarded as safe (GRAS), such as pressurized carbon dioxide and anhydrous ethanol. The unique properties of PGX liquids afford single phase conditions and very low or vanishing interfacial tension during the spraying process. This then allows the generation of extremely fine particle morphologies with high porosity and a large specific surface area resulting in favorable solubilisation properties. This platform drying technology has been successfully scaled up from lab scale to pilot scale with a processing capacity of about 200 kg/hr of aqueous solutions.

“Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures is proud to host and operate Western Canada’s only CNC pilot plant,” said Stephen Lougheed, AITF’s President and CEO. “Today’s commissioning is an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to provide technological know-how to our research and industry partners in their continued applied R&D and commercialization efforts. We’re able to provide researchers with more CNC than ever before, thereby accelerating the development of commercial applications.”

Members of Alberta’s and Western Canada’s growing CNC communities of expertise and interest spent the afternoon exploring potential commercial applications for the cellulose-based ‘wonder material.’

I have not been able to find any online trace of the plant’s grand opening. But I did find a few things. The AITF website has a page dedicated to CNC and its pilot plant and there’s a slide show about CNC and occupational health and safety from members of Alberta’s CNC Pilot Plant Research Team for their project, which started in 2014.

No mention in the Alberta media materials is ever made of CelluForce, a CNC production plant in the province of Québec, which predates the Alberta plant by more than 18 months (my Dec. 15, 2011 posting).

One last comment, CNC or cellulose nanocrystals are sometimes called nanocrystalline cellulose or NCC. This is a result of Canadians who were leaders at the time naming the substance NCC but over time researchers and producers from other countries have favoured the term CNC. Today (2015), the NCC term has been trademarked by Celluforce.